The FinCEN Files provide a stark reminder that protecting European companies and protecting European interests are not always the same thing. Governments should look again at the relationship between megabanks and democratic politics.
The FinCEN Files, published on 20 September, show how illicit finance disrupts the European Union’s plans to become a “sovereign” power. The files comprise more than 2,500 documents leaked from the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), covering around $2 trillion in transactions processed by multinational banks between 2000 and 2017. Although most of these documents are suspicious activity reports – which are far from being evidence of a crime, let alone an accurate measure of the sector as a whole – many of them provide new information on publicly known cases of money laundering, sanctions busting, and terrorist financing. European firms are central to the FinCEN Files: Deutsche Bank was allegedly involved in more than half of the transactions in the documents, while their publication contributed to a fall in the share price of HSBC – Europe’s largest bank – to its lowest point in 25 years.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
